Saturday, May 26, 2012

“Witch! Witch!” is shouted from the crowd, raising
their pitchforks and torches as they chase down the
accused for the public witch burning. Witch Hunts demonstrate how greed,
jealousy, fear and misunderstandings lead to many misfortunes of those
involved. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior
still occurs today. Now, Western Cutler no long tolerates witch burnings (too
messy), but we still can be labeled accusers, as we point the finger and do the
name calling. There are still followers, those who chant out wrong doings with
pitchforks and torches in hand (well, maybe not pitchforks and torches, more
like cellphones and ipads) and lastly, the victim, the individual tied to the
stake.

We know what it’s like to
have theaching feeling of a knife pierced in our
backs, or to have participated in the whispering taunts when that person leaves
the room. And kept the rumor mill spinning as we spread the juicy gossip of the
he said, she said crap. We all have been a victim of it or even in some way a part
of it. Drama, drama, drama! Even when we have both hands on the wheel, we just
can’t steer away from it. It’s in our homes, workplaces and even our best of friends
can dish us up a good heaping pile of it. So it’s no surprise we find it even
in the field of paranormal. “SCREAM!!!!!”

In fact, it’s so common that we
have given it its own word “Para-Drama.” Now, it’s nothing you’ll find in the
dictionary, and it still comes up underlined in red when using Spellcheck, but
it’s becoming a popular word among us ghost hunters and paranormal
investigators. It is nothing more than conflict regarding any given situation
or series of events caused by individuals or groups in the paranormal
investigation field.

Throughout my years in this field, I have experienced betrayal, rejection, ridicule, and heartbreak. I have been witness to plenty of drama played out in several
groups (including my own), usually ending with folks leaving a group, being
excluded or even termination. I have witnessed emails and online fights break
out among members and other groups. These conflicts can be the focus of investigation
methods,
interpretation of data, psychic impressions, protocol, territory, personal
conflicts, equipment used or obtained evidence, investigation location, media
and even becoming a popularity contest just to name a few.

Let’s be frank here, is this
level of immaturity
and unprofessionalism getting completely out of hand? Has investigating the
spooks sparked our inner children? And now we take our toys and run when things
don’t go our way?

GROW UP
PEOPLE!!!

With overwhelming amount of
people chasing ghosts, many groups and individuals have been known to display egos, competitiveness and jealousy targeted
at those they simply disagree with or don't understand and in most cases, don’t
even know personally. It’s the belief that if we make others look bad, we make
ourselves look good. But who really has the time for this type of behavior?

Are we so
prepared to go to war with our fellow ghost hunter, when we may not even have
the facts straight? We call ourselves investigators, yet in most cases we have
not even taken the correct steps in finding truth to what’s happened when
dealing with the situation. Could all this simply be nothing more
than wrong
assumptions, misinterpretations which lead to multiple opportunities for misunderstandings in
our community, all due to the lack of communication we have with one another?
Remember, every tale has two sides to the same story.

Take this
example for instance: In the casino you spend $20 on a slot machine that just
didn’t pay out. As you walk away, some stranger jumps on the same machine and
pops in a nickel and hits the jackpot. How does this make you feel? You’re
pissed, even furious at the person who just won big. It’s human nature that effects
our reactions and influences our behavior towards perfectly innocent and random
events.

Just like
in ghost research, we can spend hours investigating a haunted location and get nothing,
but when another team goes in and walks away with something amazing, we tend to
respond with “We didn’t get anything there; so it wasn’t haunted, so that group
must have faked their evidence.” This type of thing happens all the time. And the
term for this is simplyjealousy. Remember
with ghost hunting, it’s all about being at the right place at the right time.

There is no such thing as a perfect
team or investigator; there will always be power struggles, conflicts, personality clashes, and disagreements about how
others feel the group should be run. In fact,you
may not agree with some of the techniques and/or equipment used on
investigations, however, we all strive to do our best to learn what
works and what doesn’t.

We don’t need
to deal with a rat race to find the perfect evidence or to become the most
popular group. It’s almost like geeks vs. jocks in high school. And in this
field, we know the geeks are going to win ;-) The best
thing you can do to avoid this type of behavior and prevent yourself from
becoming a Para-Drama Queen is to leave the negative attitude at home. Always
be professional. You don’t have to like everyone in this field, just treat them
with respect. Remember attitude is everything.

What we
need to do is work together. Learn to develop better ways of having direct communication with the other groups and individuals
in this field. Have a face-to-face conversation if at all possible or at least
on the phone which offersa more effective way in
communication. Here are few good reasons why you’ll want to do this:

1.Issues
can be dealt with faster

2.Less room for misunderstanding in the content of
the text

3.Builds relationships & communication skills

Don’t allow
yourself to be a victim in how your email was interpreted. Potential damage is done through emails and
text, often enough that can never be repaired.

So get off
the Para-Drama bandwagon and motivate yourself and your team to what brought
you here in the first place, to have a better understanding of the unknown. For
your experience in this field should never be diminished by resentment or our own insecurities but filled with
the pleasure of having that encounter you’ve been longing for, an experience
filled with the paranormal and NOT Para-Drama.